Strong opinions, weakly held

From Fred Kaplan’s wrap-up of Condoleeza Rice’s public testimony today:

Rice insisted this title meant nothing. The document consisted of merely “historical information” about al-Qaida–various plans and attacks of the past. “This was not a ‘threat report,’ ” she said. It “did not warn of any coming attack inside the United States.” Later in the hearing, she restated the point: “The PDB does not say the United States is going to be attacked. It says Bin Laden would like to attack the United States.”

This distinction was not enough to prevent us from invading Iraq, but it does justify in retrospect not doing more to hunt for terrorists in the United States this summer? I’m not on the bandwagon that says that the Bush administration was negligent for not preventing the attacks on 9/11, but for an administration that espouses a foreign policy based on preemption, this argument seems a bit hollow.

Bonus: a glossary for the testimony by William Saletan. The Daily Show had a hilarious and depressing report on Rice’s testimony as well.